The ceiling pulsed like a living heart. Each flicker of the asylum lights seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting with the rhythm of Aarav's own pulse. The walls whispered things again — incoherent murmurs stitched together from fragments of his own thoughts.
He pressed his palms against his ears, but it didn't help. The sound wasn't coming from the walls. It was inside his skull.
> "You made her wait too long."
Aarav's reflection in the cracked window smirked back at him. It was faint at first, but as he stared, its grin stretched wider, its eyes bleeding into black pits.
"Who?" Aarav's voice trembled.
> "The one who remembers you. The one who still believes you're real."
He took a step back, and the reflection didn't follow. It just stood there, smiling. Then the glass cracked with a sharp snap, and from the fracture, a voice whispered — low, sweet, and heartbreakingly familiar.
> "Aarav... come home."
His mother's voice.
Aarav stumbled backward into the hallway. The flickering bulbs above him turned red. Doors lined the corridor, all numbered, all locked — except one.
Room 13.
The handle gleamed.
He reached for it.
Meanwhile — Outside
Aisha sat in the library's dim glow, clutching the same black diary that had started everything. The words written in it weren't ink — they were... burns. The letters had etched themselves into the pages as though written by heat rather than pen.
She flipped to the last entry. The handwriting was frantic.
> "If I don't wake up, it means I never left. The asylum isn't a place — it's me."
Aisha's breath hitched. She had been searching for Aarav for months, tracing every file, every missing-person report, every place he might have gone after the night the mirror shattered. But the more she searched, the less the world seemed to remember him.
Even his family's apartment was gone. The address existed — but the building didn't.
Now, only the diary remained.
A drop of water fell on the page. Except... it wasn't raining.
She looked up.
A small crack ran through the ceiling, leaking dark water. The puddle rippled — and for a moment, Aisha saw her own reflection blink independently of her.
Back in the Asylum
Room 13 wasn't empty.
It was a nursery. A rocking chair creaked in the corner, moving on its own. A music box played a slow lullaby — notes slightly off-key, warped like something remembered wrong.
On the crib lay a baby blanket. Embroidered on it, in faded thread:
"Aarav."
His breath caught.
The shadow appeared again, standing at the end of the crib — not monstrous this time, but calm, composed, almost... tender. Its voice came softer now.
> "You weren't supposed to leave this room."
Aarav's knees weakened. "Who are you?"
> "What's left when guilt forgets its name."
The floor rippled beneath him, shifting like liquid. He fell to his knees as the walls started closing in, shrinking, the lullaby growing louder, faster — like a heartbeat racing toward collapse.
The crib caught fire, not with flame, but with memories. His childhood, his laughter, his mother's smile — all burning away into white smoke.
He screamed.
And then — silence.
Outside — Aisha's Side
Aisha jolted as every light in the library went out. The diary fell from her hands.
When she picked it up again, a new sentence had appeared:
> "Don't open Room 13."
Her heart raced. "You're alive," she whispered.
She grabbed her phone and flashlight and ran toward the old mental hospital on the outskirts — the same one that was closed twenty years ago after a patient burned the west wing to ashes.
Wind howled as she approached the gates. Rusted chains creaked, swinging open without her touching them.
Inside, the walls were lined with peeling wallpaper and the faint scent of antiseptic and rot.
As she moved through the corridor, the air grew colder. Her breath fogged the glass. Then she saw it — a door slightly ajar. Room 13.
Two Realities Collide
Inside, Aarav felt warmth on his skin — someone was touching him.
Through the haze of fire and whispers, a voice called out, desperate and real.
> "Aarav, wake up!"
He turned. Aisha stood at the doorway, her eyes wide, her body trembling.
But she wasn't supposed to be here. She couldn't be here.
Because she was the one who'd written the diary.
The asylum trembled, the walls bending inward.
"Aisha, you need to leave!" he shouted.
> "You're not here," she said, tears glimmering. "You never were. But if you're a memory, I'll save you anyway."
The shadow behind him lunged — tendrils of black smoke curling like snakes. Aisha held up the diary, and the pages burst into light, searing the dark into nothingness.
The walls shattered like glass.
A blinding white void swallowed everything.
The Aftermath
When Aarav opened his eyes, he was lying in his childhood room — but it was empty, hollow, frozen in a single moment of time.
The mirror beside the bed was cracked, and through it, he saw Aisha — still standing in the asylum, holding the burnt diary.
They were in two realities now, staring at each other through the fracture.
She mouthed something he couldn't hear.
He pressed his palm against the glass. She did the same.
Then, slowly, her reflection began to fade.
> "Don't forget me this time," she whispered.
Aarav's eyes widened. "No—"
But the mirror darkened, swallowing her reflection until only his own remained — fractured, trembling, and smiling through the tears.
> "Some memories don't fade… they rot beautifully."